Category Archives: Joy

Wishcasting Wednesday

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image from jamie’s post

What do you wish for this summer?

My biggest wish for this summer is that the High Park Fire will be 100% contained, controlled, stopped, extinguished. That the fire fighters will stay safe, that no more homes will burn, no more harm will be done, and no more fires will start this summer.

That Eric and I and our two boys have a safe trip to Oregon, and then back to Colorado. That our drive is smooth, easy, and without issue or complication, that the dogs stay cool and comfortable, and we arrive in Oregon (and then Colorado) with little effort or suffering. And that our Big Rig functions as a vehicle of love and light that protects everyone we pass or follow or meet along the way. That anyone else traveling in this same time frame is also safe.

driftwood beach, where we’ll be walking in just a few days

That I practice mindfulness and gratitude, experience rest and play and joy while we are in Oregon. I need the rest, and I want to connect wholeheartedly to the joy of the present moment and sink into it fully.

hiking two years ago at cape perpetua, on the oregon coast

That I have a good experience at the World Domination Summit. That I don’t freak out, I don’t push or bully myself to do too much, I don’t try too hard, don’t sink into feeling unworthy or afraid that I’m missing something, that I remain safe and well, and that I get to, in a kind and gentle way, meet the people on the list I carry in my heart and tell them to their faces “thank you and I adore you.” That I can have confidence, “the willingness to be as ridiculous, luminous, intelligent, and kind as you really are, without embarrassment” (Susan Piver).

Happy, comfortable, safe beach dogs.

Naps, eating seafood, reading, writing, yoga, meditation, walks on the beach, hiking, meeting new friends, long conversations about nothing and everything, laughter, love, love, love.

where the forest meets the sea

And this, from Mary Oliver (shared here this morning), this is what I wish, not just for summer, but for my life. And for you as well, kind and gentle reader. Happy first day of summer and much love to you. May you have everything you wish for this summer as well.

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Three Truths and One Wish

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cover of my new journal from rifle paper company, reminds me of the wallpaper in my great aunt magdelaine’s bedroom (except that it was pink)

I started this post today with this simple writing prompt: “What do I know to be true right now?”

1. Truth: My house won’t be any cleaner just because I’m on vacation. Oh dear reader, I had such plans to be better, do better–stronger, faster, cleaner. And yet, only a few days in, I’ve decided to let that go. There is nothing magic or special about vacation. There’s still work that needs done and still not enough time to do everything I have planned–and that’s going to have to be okay.

2. Truth: The days aren’t magically longer because I’m on vacation. Another expectation I had about this vacation that I am letting go early on is that somehow the days would stretch out before me like forever. That I would lose track of time in a sense of endless bliss, feeling like years had passed between sunrise and sunset, like the way summer vacation felt when I was a kid. Now don’t get me wrong, I hope to have a few days like that, maybe even a few weeks, but I’m okay if the entire almost three months doesn’t feel that way every minute.

3. Truth: I need to learn to rest and play. At the workshop with Brene’ Brown this weekend, reviewing the guideposts for wholehearted living, the things to cultivate and the things to let go that she writes about in The Gifts of Imperfection, I felt pretty good about most of them. I am clearly still working on “cultivating self-compassion and letting go of perfectionism” and “cultivating calm and stillness and letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle,” but I am making such good progress.

The one place that I need to do some real work is with “cultivating rest and play and letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol.” I’ve mentioned before how now that I’m finally moving, it’s so hard for me to stop–I feel like I’ve already wasted so much time. But, Brene’ reminded us this weekend that if we rush the work, the work won’t be as good as it could be, and that this is a life we are living, we don’t want to rush our way to the end, and we want to enjoy it and contribute something of value so we need to cultivate the things that keep us strong, to “respect our body’s need for renewal.”

One Wish: That we can all soften and lean in to joy, whether we are on vacation or not, wherever we find it. And that we remember we can stop, sleep, rest, even quit if we need to, that there is wisdom in being gentle and kind with ourselves, brilliance in slowing down.